


Take All My Loves

by Arlome



Category: Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: Birth, F/M, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 12:36:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12457926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlome/pseuds/Arlome
Summary: Dr. Enys has another brush with death.





	Take All My Loves

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a dialogue prompt on Tumblr (no' 56- Don't you dare die on me)
> 
> Set immediately after my one-shot "Life".
> 
> Also, this fic has quite the amount of blood in it. Be warned.

The afterbirth was, thankfully, intact.

Dwight examined the veiny sack of blood and tissue that nourished his newborn daughter for nine months under the bright light of a candle and breathed out a sigh of relief when no signs of ruptures were detected. The birth was difficult, taking more than a day, and there were times when he thought that he might lose both mother and child; but Caroline had prevailed, praise God, and at last brought forth a beautiful, albeit somewhat frail-looking, tiny girl. 

She was nursing the babe now, lying in bed like an Empress amidst many pillows; tired, haggard, sweaty, but rarely more beautiful in his loving eyes. Her own eyes were drooping closed as the child suckled greedily, hanging on to the new thread of life with avaricious tenacity. Dwight dropped the afterbirth into a small basin, wiped his hands on the towel that hung from his waist and went to retrieve his daughter, who protested mildly at the forced detachment from her mother's breast. At the faint complain, Caroline stirred and blinked blearily, at last focusing on her smiling husband.

"What?" she asked in confusion, looking about herself, slightly disoriented; then, at last noticing the missing child in her husband's arms, she frowned and looked at him imploringly, "W-where are you taking her? Give her to me; Dwight, give her to me…"

"You need to rest, my heart," he said quietly, stooping to kiss his wife's sweaty forehead, "you've had a very difficult time, Caroline; you must regain some strength. Fear not, our daughter is as tired as you are and will probably sleep through the night; now rest, darling." 

Caroline pouted prettily and sniffed, but made no protest and even reluctantly gave him half a nod. Dwight turned to one of the two maids in the room, a young girl of nineteen by the name of Jane, and handed her the child; the girl smiled broadly and cooed at the newborn, bouncing her softly in her arms.

"A pretty little thing, Sur," she said, not taking her eyes off the babe, "she'll grow to be such a beauty!" 

Dwight smiled proudly at the serving girl and turned back towards the bed to acknowledge playfully that he had little to do with the child's good looks, but something in his wife's countenance stayed his tongue. She looked paler than she did but a few moments ago, and her eyelids were heavier than before; she could barely keep her eyes open.

"Caroline?" he asked cautiously and frowned in growing alarm at the sluggish way in which she tried to turn her head towards him.

"I-I," she stammered, "I feel a little…faint, Dwight…"

Mary, the other maid in the room, and the one standing closest to Caroline, bent slightly to touch her hand.

"Mistress?" she asked kindly, gently rubbing the cool fingers, "Mistress Caroline, are you well?"

When the only response she got in return was a listless blink and parted lips, Mary looked up and fixed her worried glance on Dwight.

"Her fingers are cold as ice, Dr. Enys; I think something is wrong with Mistress!" 

He willed his legs to move, uprooting them from the floor, bone by bone, and rushed over to the bed. Unceremoniously and without much heed to Jane's startled gasp, Dwight threw the blankets off his half-conscious wife; on his right Mary gave a little shriek of terror, her hands flying to her mouth to stop the screams from spilling over her fingers. 

Time seemed to freeze like January ice atop a wide lake, creeping slowly and stiffening for months on end. His heart stammered, choked, made a few feeble attempts to continue to throb as if nothing happened, and then stopped for a few precious seconds altogether; amidst white sheets, snowy and pristine as if just off a line, Caroline lay in a pool of blood.  
A cry of dismay stuck in his throat, unable to pass through the blockade of terror that lodged itself inside his esophagus, and for a moment Dwight feared that he might gag and vomit; but a whimper that escaped his wife's lips hit him hard in the gut and spilled over him like a bucket of ice and brought him promptly to his wits. 

Through her dull senses and sluggish reflexes, Caroline understood that something was exceedingly _wrong._ Her not-quite-wide eyes were haunted as they looked up at Dwight and at her slightly hysterical maids; her lips quivered in alarm and to his dismay, the good doctor realized that his wife was frightened- _absolutely petrified_ \- and that he must do something – _he must do something!_

Dwight climbed into the bed hurriedly, pushing Caroline's feet up and shoving her shift above her stomach and out of the way. There was blood everywhere, and for a split second, he was back in Quimper, amputating a limb or extracting a bullet out of a putrid wound, when Caroline's feeble voice brought him back to reality.

"Dwight…" she whimpered, her head heavy and weak on the pillows, "Dwight…I-I…something's w-wrong…"

He grabbed a clean napkin from the bedside table and pressed it against her bleeding center.

"I have you!" he cried, one bloody hand pushing at her thigh to keep it out of his way, "have no fear, my love; I have you!"

She drew a weak breath, struggling with the simple task like a dying man, and tried to smile.

"M-my hero..." she sighed and lost consciousness, her head lolling to the side; the sunny ringlets of her hair spilling like a shower of gold beneath her pallid cheeks. 

Jane burst out into tears but thankfully kept her crying to a level of silent weeping so as not to disturb the obliviously sleeping babe in her arms. Mary, who stood to Dwight's right, spluttered in despair and sniffed loudly.

"Sur," she cried, pinching the skin of her forearms in agitation, "Sur; is Mistress…?"

"No," Dwight shook his head in negation, pressing at the bloodstained napkin as hard as he could, "just unconscious; but there is no time to lose! Jane," he ordered, not taking his eyes off the soiled cloth, "put Miss Enys in the crib and ask Thomas to fetch Mrs. Cartlidge, the Cook; she's a steady hand, and we shall need that before long; then come back here and give me a hand." 

The girl placed the sleeping babe gently in the cot and flew out of the door as fast as she could; Dwight was glad that she did not waste precious time on foolish courtesies and mumbled words. Taking no heed of the other maid, he removed the napkin gently and, squinting, slipped two fingers into his wife's birth canal. He prayed to God that the bleeding did not stem from the womb; if this was a uterine hemorrhage, there was little he could do and Caroline – his beloved, darling Caroline- would bleed out and die in a matter of minutes. 

With bated breath, his probing fingers felt around the inner walls of the birth canal; seeking, hoping against hope, and all the while _praying_ – at the first contact, his throat tightened in tremulous exhilaration; then, the second contact confirmed his suspicions, and he breathed out a sigh of relief.

A large tear, the size of his thumb, deep in the vaginal wall, was the source of the bleeding. The relief he felt was only half justified; the flowing of blood had to be staunched, and there was only one, extremely difficult way to do it. Dwight pressed both fingers hard against the tear to stop the bleeding for the time being and turned his head to the steadfast maid to his right.

"Mary, are you squeamish?" he asked urgently, his hand threatening to go numb from pressure, "can I rely on you?"

"No, Sur!" the girl cried, shaking her head, "and yes, Sur! Of course, Sur!" 

Nodding, Dwight inclined his head backwards.

"Very good," he said, silently thanking his lucky stars, "go to my bag and bring it over, please, Mary; I need my suture kit."

The girl did as she was bid, with great haste and efficiency and Dwight was, once again, thankful for his wife's shrewdness and good eye when it came to employing the helping personnel. Mary placed the bag on the nightstand and waited for further instructions.

"The suture kit is in a little leather pouch in the inner pocket," he nodded gratefully when she found the desired sack on the first try, "very good, Mary; now, take a clean napkin. Mind you, the cloth has to be clean, not just look it; we do not want Mrs. Enys to contract childbed fever."

Mary crossed herself in terror.

"No, Sur! Heaven forbid, Sur!" she cried in dismay, and reached for the basket she first brought into the room when the birth started. She retrieved one of the clean napkins and placed it gently by Dwight's bag, then she turned to look at him, "What now, Sur?"

"Now you take everything out of that pouch and pass it over the naked flame of the candle you are holding," he instructed her and watched like a hawk as she fulfilled his request, "Well done, Mary; now place them on the clean cloth and lay them at my left elbow; yes, thank you."

Just when he began wondering what in the Devil's name kept the Cook and the other maid, the two women shuffled into the room. Mrs. Cartlidge, a big woman by all accounts, gave a great heave and dabbed her eyes with her equally large handkerchief.

"Oh, Dr. Enys, Sur!" she wailed and leaned against the wall to stop herself from sliding to the floor in a dead faint, " _The Mistress!_ Is the Mistress-?"

"Mrs. Enys is unconscious," he interrupted her, beginning to lose the little composure he had and the feeling in his right arm, "but it is critical, so I shall need your assistance."

Dwight had to hand it to the large woman; at his desperate request, she seemed to pull herself together and, drawing herself to her full height, her great bosoms thrust before her in resolve, she rolled up her sleeves in what suddenly seemed like dead calm.

"What do you need of me, Sur?" she asked promptly.

"I need you to hold Mrs. Enys' right knee in place; and Jane," he said, turning to the youngest girl, "I need you to hold the left knee; do you think you can do it? I need both of my hands to suturing my wife."

Jane nodded vigorously, her pale face determined despite its greenish hue. Dwight nodded his thanks and turned to the last of the servants.

"Mary, I need you to stand by my head and hold the candle as close to Mrs. Enys as you can," he requested, knowing that he was asking quite a lot of a young, unmarried girl, "Now, I must warn you, the sight of…the ordeal… may shock you."

Mary took the candlestick from the nightstand and moved closer to him; the faint scent of anxious sweat reached his nostrils.

"Nonsense, Sur," she said, almost breathing in his ear in her proximity, "I will do anything required to help you and Mistress, Dr. Enys." 

"Thank you," he whispered when the light was close enough to his face that he felt the heat on his sweaty skin, "thank you all."

Once the Cook took hold of Caroline's right thigh, Dwight was able to use the fingers of his left hand to part the bloodied flesh of his wife's birth canal. He extracted his right hand, shook it out to get some feeling back into it and squeezed the fingers a few times; then he reached for the needle and thread.

"Mary," he whispered, unwilling to break his concentration, "come closer with the candle, I cannot see a thing."

Dwight felt her almost pressed against his back, and her slightly musty scent was somewhat offensive to his sensitive nose, but he took no note of that. The light was finally close enough for him to see the fingers of his left hand properly; the rest he ascertained by pressure and feel.

It took twenty long minutes, but at the end, Dwight was done. When he felt that the sutures would hold steady and that the flow of blood finally ceased, he drew back and, with a weary sigh, nodded at the other women. 

Caroline was still unconscious. Her face was deathly pale, her lips the color of an underbelly of a fish; the danger was still very present. 

Mary stooped to touch his shoulder gently, and he looked up at her with tired eyes.

"Go have a wash, Dr. Enys," she said gently and, to his mortification, helped him to his feet, "Meself and Jane will make Mistress a bit more presentable, if you understand my meaning, Sur."

Dwight nodded and placed his tools back into his bag; the cleaning and disinfecting will have to wait for the morrow.

"I will return shortly," he said and turned towards the door, but then he hesitated and turned back to the serving girl, "don't move her, Mary; try not to disturb her. She must not be moved."

Mary nodded and curtsied, no doubt wishing him gone.

"As you say, Dr. Enys."

 

Fifteen minutes later, he was back in the room; washed and dressed in fresh breeches and undershirt. Caroline lay on the bed, pale and still as death. Only the slight rise and fall of her chest evidence that she was still in the realm of the Living. The three women cleaned his wife, brushed her long, wet golden curls and spread a clean sheet under her bottom; all this without disturbing her body. Dwight was eternally grateful and let the three ladies know of his gratitude. Jane cried openly, and Mary tried to offer to sit with Caroline, while Mrs. Cartlidge sat rocking the tiny cradle, but Dwight refused gently.

"No, no, Mary," he insisted, falling into a chair by the side of the bed, "I must stay in case she takes a turn for the worst. But do take our darling girl and keep her with you for the night, if you please. She will probably sleep through all hours, but if she does wake, boiled sugar water should satisfy her."

Mary nodded and bent to take the tiny bundle, and held it close to her heart while Mrs. Cartlidge picked up the crib; Jane, still crying loudly, closed the door behind them. Dwight and Caroline were alone in the room.

He stood up from the chair and moved to sit on the edge of the bed, his hip pressed against hers; his left hand cradled her jaw, the thumb brushing the soft, cold skin of her cheek. He felt choked up, suffocating on his own despair, unable to do a thing now to help her regain consciousness. The loss of blood was substantial, both from the birth itself and from the deep laceration as the result of it, and there was every chance that Caroline would continue to silently slumber forever.

"D-don't," he whispered softly, his fingers gliding into the curls and tugging lightly, hoping to draw her out of this coma, "don't you dare die now, Caroline. Not after everything; not after Quimper and the separation; not now that we have a daughter. No, my love; _no."_

Dwight's fingers slipped from her hair, fleetingly touching skin on their retreat; as he bent down to kiss her pale lips.

"Not now, I beg you, my darling," he repeated against her mouth, wishing to breathe determination into her, "we have a daughter, Caroline; we have a daughter. Do not leave us."

She did not stir, but it seemed to Dwight that her breathing became less shallow and that the pallid hue of her face seemed to rescind. Praying that it was not some cruel trick of candlelight, he got up and returned to his seated vigil beside the bed.

An hour later he was asleep.

***

Thirst; undeniable, ceaseless thirst. 

This was the first thing Caroline acknowledged as she opened her eyes. The bright light coming in through the windows and blinding her was the second.

She looked around the room, her head foggy and throat too parched to speak. She was in her bedroom, that much she knew, and it was clean, though not immaculately so. The faint odor of blood still lingered in the room, and she thought she was able to spy a bloodstained rag lying forgotten on the floor. Her stirring seemed to wake her husband, who was – as she only then realized- crumbled in an unnatural position in a chair by the bed. At the faintest sound he jumped up, alert as ever, and looked for the source of noise with haunted eyes; when he noticed her looking at him, his brows furrowed and his face crumpled.

_"Oh God!"_ he cried, and launched himself on the bed; his fingers grabbing her left hand, pressing it to his forehead, "Oh God! Oh _God!"_

Caroline couldn't see his face, it was hidden from her, almost plastered to the linen; but she could see his shoulders shaking, and she could sense the moisture on her palm. She weaved the fingers of her right hand into his unkempt hair and brushed it softly.

"I'm here, Dwight," she croaked, "I'm well, Dwight; please, _please…"_

By the time he was able to lift his face from her hand and look at her, she could properly use her voice and ask for a cup of water, and then another; for the thirst was great and hard to quench. She drank two more cups before she realized that the cause of all the drama was absent from the room.

"W-where," she began, throat still raw, when Dwight took away the cup from her hands, "where is she? Where is Sarah?"

"She's with Mary," he said and took her hand in his, feeling for her pulse, "you needed calm; peace and quiet. I could not risk Sarah disturbing you, even in your comatose state."

"I want her," she cried dryly, no tears available for lack of fluids, "I want her, Dwight; bring her to me!"

He did not argue, as she feared he would; but simply got up and exited the room, without a single word. He returned five minutes later with their daughter in his hands.

Caroline tried to extend her arms to receive her, but was too fatigued to move; so Dwight lay down the tiny bundle of lace between them on the bed and settled down as well. Caroline lifted her right hand sluggishly and touched a soft cheek; Sarah opened her murky eyes and bleated softly.

"She's fed," Dwight whispered, one of his fingers cut in a tiny flailing fist, "Mary gave her some sugar water an hour ago; I've sent for a wet nurse." When he noticed that Caroline opened her mouth to protest, he shook his head firmly, "You cannot nurse her, my love; you have lost a lot of blood. In fact; you are not out of danger yet. In a few days, while the volume of your blood increases, perhaps; but not now, my love. Not now."

He was right, of course, and she knew it; fatigue sat heavily in her chest, her limbs aching and head full of cotton. She was in no state to care for their daughter; not at the moment.

"How bad was it?" she asked to distract herself from guilt, and her finger slipped into the little fuzz of golden curls atop her daughter's head, "tell me, Dwight…"

He looked straight into her eyes, and at that moment, Caroline knew that- for him- it was worse than prison, worse than _anything_ he ever experienced in his life.

"It was very bad," was all he was willing to say on the subject.

An uneasy moment passed between them before Dwight looked down at the tiny babe, brought the little fist to his lips and smiled.

"It was bad, but now it is _good,"_ he whispered and raised his gaze to look at Caroline with such an expression of gratitude in his eyes that she nearly gasped for breath, "so let us cherish that." 

She leveled her glance with his, and nodded softly; her own fear rising and falling like the waves.

"Yes," she whispered back and pressed her cheek against the cool pillow, "let's."


End file.
